Texas School Board Candidate Faces Assault Charge After Mask Kerfuffle

An Austin-area woman is facing an assault charge after a scuffle with an employee over a store's mask policy.

Kara Bell was asked to wear a mask at a Nordstrom Rack store in Sunset Valley on April 7. She told employees that she had a health exemption and didn't need to wear a mask, Fox 7 reported.

Employees told her she needed to leave because she was breaking store policy and they tried to block her from entering a fitting room. That's when things became heated, and Bell allegedly shoved an employee out of the way to enter the dressing room.

Police arrived when Bell was still in the fitting room and she came out wearing the store's clothes. Cops told her to get changed because she needed to leave the store.

Police body camera footage shows Bell arguing with the cops after she finally exited the store.

“I am a Christian woman of God and you are not going to put your disgusting rules on me that are false and not true. I will not have it," she told police.

Bell is currently running for a seat on the Lake Travis ISD school board. The district told Fox 7 that it's aware of the incident, but couldn't comment because of the upcoming election.

Sunset Valley Police Chief Lenn Carter told the Austin American Statesman that Bell was part of a group going to the city to stage mask protests.

“If they think they can come here and do that in our city anonymously, they can’t. Our officers should be out there with crime prevention and responding to calls for help, not being used as political pawns or ploys for somebody’s political ambition," Carter told the newspaper.

Sunset Valley is among a handful of cities in Texas with a legal mask mandate because it's in Travis County.

Photo: Sun Valley Police Department